Under the CARES Act, two-thirds of eligible unemployed Americans can access unemployment insurance exceeding their prior earnings. Peter Ganong and Joseph Vavra discuss what this fact means for the unemployed, economic recovery from COVID-19, and how to improve the program for future federal relief packages.

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South Korea detected its first case of COVID-19 one day before the US, but rather than initiate lockdowns, it launched a program that shares location information on COVID-19 patients. Chang-Tai Hsieh discusses how South Korea limited COVID-19 deaths to 5.2 per million while the US rate climbed to 289 per million, and what it may reveal about the cost of privacy.

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Since March, 22% of American workers lost their jobs. How can we begin to think about such an unprecedented deterioration in the labor market? Erik Hurst has studied who exactly has stopped collecting a paycheck and gives context to the staggering numbers. Then, Joseph Vavra shares his research on one of the most critical hurdles for parents to get back to work – childcare.

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Freakonomics’ Steve Levitt believes in the power of incentives and he has a new proposal for how to make widespread testing successful: set up a testers' lottery and give gigantic cash prizes. And, Eric Zwick takes a closer look at PPP lending to small businesses under the CARES Act and how many of these loans missed the target.

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Is there any room for optimism amid an economic shock of this magnitude? Austan Goolsbee offers insights from past economic crises and a path forward for balancing trade-offs between public health and the economy. His colleague Steve Davis explores the reallocation of jobs as a result from the current shock, and the potential long-term economic consequences.

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Many workers are able to continue working without ever leaving home and risking exposure. Looking at which workers have this option reveals other insights. In this episode, Brent Neiman and Simon Mongey discuss their research quantifying who can work from home and who bears the costs of social distancing policies. 

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As the COVID-19 pandemic has sent world economies into deep freeze, hosts Tess Vigeland, former host of public radio’s Marketplace, and Eduardo Porter, economics reporter for the New York Times, are interviewing top economists from the University of Chicago. Subscribe to this podcast produced by Stitcher and the Becker Friedman Institute for Economics for insights to help you navigate this moment. New episodes published weekly.

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